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Marketing Agency of the Month Lessons learned Risk diversification works for agencies as well as insurers By Dennis H. Pillsbury
It is an axiom in the insurance business that you don’t put all your underwriting eggs in one basket. Insurance companies that failed to adhere to that principle are remembered only by those who study insurance history. Years of “profit” from attractively high premiums on coastal properties can be eradicated quickly by a hurricane or two, as can years of reserving with “rose-tinted glasses” on long-tail liability lines. The same is true of local economies. Counting on one business can result in a sudden downturn a la Detroit and environs when the automotive industry took it on the chin. And agencies that depended on that economy also felt the pinch. The Bramlett Agency in Ardmore, Oklahoma, was successfully built on an oil and gas economy that resulted in Ardmore, at one time, being one of the wealthiest towns in the nation on a per capita basis. Unfortunately, only two years after Bob Bramlett’s 1980 purchase of the agency from his parents, the oil and gas market “went south in a hurry. We had a million-dollar (annual premium) oil and gas contractor fall to $40,000 in about one week. We saw the need to diversify as a community and as an agency in a hurry,” Bob Bramlett, president and CEO, says. At the agency, the diversification involved not just branching out into other property and casualty markets, it also meant getting into employee benefits in a big way. “We got really good at doing employee benefits really fast,” says T.J. Riley, producer and sales coach. Today, employee benefits represents 43% of the agency’s revenues.
“At the same time, the agency ramped up its proactive involvement with the community,” T.J. continues. “Bob got involved with the develop-ment authority, which worked on bringing other types of businesses into the Ardmore area. Today, Bob is chairman of the authority. That proactive approach to community involvement continues today. All our team members are involved in the community.” The Bramlett Agency was founded in 1948 by Bob’s parents, Jim and Mary Jane Bramlett, and was primarily engaged in real estate and insurance. Bob joined the agency in 1975. Today, it has 20 employees and $2.4 million in revenue and “is on track—as spelled out in our five-year plan—to reach our goal to be at $5 million at the end of 2009,” Bob notes. “Our revenue per employee in 2009 will be $200,000 and our profit will be 20%.” It is also a member of the Bains/West cluster that serves all of Oklahoma and northwest Arkansas. “We’re on that track because of T.J.,” Bob continues. “He has worked to change the culture at the agency to focus on sales and relationships with key customers and with each other. We have moved away from trying to sell to trying to help. You have to have a team of people working in the same direction to be truly successful, and that’s what he’s built here.” Bob also credits much of the success of the agency to the dedication and expertise of all Bramlett team members. One such team member is Dewinda Ford, vice president of Customer Service. “Dewinda has been providing invaluable customer service for this agency for over 30 years, as well as supporting community with her work with many charities,” states Bob.
As a testament to Dewinda’s outstanding customer service and leadership, she was named the National Outstanding CSR of the Year in 2003 by the Society of Certified Insurance Service Representatives (CISR) and the Society of Certified Insurance Counselors (CIC). Selected from a field of 42 state winners, she was awarded the honor based on her individual contributions to the insurance community. “I’ve always loved the insurance industry and the challenges it presents and, even more, the relationships I have established. I truly enjoy being a part of a team that also values these aspects,” said Dewinda. Another vital contributor to the agency’s continued growth is Senior Vice President/COO Neil Johnson. Neil joined the Bramlett team in 1990, coming from Central Insurance Companies, one of Bramlett’s strongest carrier/agency relationships. Hitting his 15-year anniversary with the agency this August, Neil has helped navigate the agency through turbulent, as well as prosperous times. “It is our goal to continue to thrive in any environment within the insurance industry,” states Neil, “and adhering to this new philosophy, this new culture has just seemed to help keep everyone focused in an upward direction.” T.J. came to the agency from a family business for which Bramlett was the agency. “It was a small family business where Bramlett had helped us put in a safety program,” T.J. remembers. “I was just about to move on and become director of the YMCA when Dad had a stroke the day before I was to start at the ‘Y.’ Bobby and the team became my advisory team as I tried to keep the business going. They held my hand throughout the process and provided enormous assistance. And my business certainly didn’t justify the effort. We were fairly small potatoes. Needless to say I was impressed. “So, when Dad came back, fully recovered from his stroke, and we started bumping into each other, I decided it was time to move on. The Bramlett Agency was the first place I looked and they were kind enough to hire me.”
“T.J. offered exactly what we were looking for,” Bob notes. “He was a self-starter who was great with people and understood sales. The ingredients that had the ‘Y’ offering him a job as its director were the same ingredients we needed in a sales coach and producer. He was a perfect fit with the new culture we were trying to instill at the agency—one that emphasized consultative selling that set us apart from the competition. As former Big ‘I’ President Dick Teubner once told me, ‘People that buy by price leave you by price.’ That stuck with me and when I took over the agency, I realized that I wanted to create an environment where we would provide a team of experts to our key clients that could not be equaled anywhere else.” Around that time, Bob was talking to an old friend he had known for 27 years—Roger Sitkins. Bob has a place in Florida and had met Roger there. Their kids are the same age and got together quite often, as did Bob and Roger. Although he was a member of the Sitkins network which later evolved into the Sitkins 100 for which Bob served as president one year, Bob was not a strict devotee of Sitkins’s teaching. “Roger kept me on the straight and narrow as we went through many changes brought about by the diversification at both the community and agency level,” Bob notes. “But I was not ready right away to jump into the culture change that was required to really implement a change to a relationship sales organization. With T.J. on board, however, I felt like we had everything in place to begin asking our people to once again go through some monumental changes. “About a year-and-a-half ago, we began upping expectations from each member of our team. Rather than the resistance I expected, they embraced the change. The main focus of the change was the importance of developing even stronger relationships with our key clients. It turned out to be just what our team wanted,” Bob explains.
For whom the bell tolls As part of the effort to generate enthusiasm for everyone’s success and create an atmosphere that emphasized that each person’s success contributed to the overall success of the team, Bob decided to have a bell installed in the agency that would be rung whenever a new account came in, similar to an old tradition that dates back to Lloyd’s of London. However, Bob decided that the bell would be the kind used at a boxing ring to announce the start and end of rounds. T.J. was assigned the task of finding such a bell. It proved to be a new learning experience, as T.J. found out about eBay auctions. “I placed a bid for a bell and was leading right up until the end, when a flurry of activity occurred and I missed the bell by $10.” Apparently, someone else out there had been given a similar assignment and proved to have a bigger budget than T.J. thought he had. However, that changed quickly when Bob’s reaction was, “I want a (expletive deleted) bell.” T.J. went back onto eBay and put in bids on three bells. He won all three auctions. The best bell obtained through that effort now occupies a prominent place on the conference room wall below the famous picture of Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston and a sign that indicates the ringing of the bell represents “another knockout by The Bramlett Agency.” One relationship at a time A new effort by the agency to further strengthen its relationships with its clients is a Trusted Advisor Luncheon. Bramlett is a Trusted Choice® agency and wanted to emphasize to its clients that “we are consultants—true trusted advisors,” Bob says, adding that “we walk away from people who are just looking for vendors.” Invited to the first luncheon were eight top people from one of the agency’s largest clients, Mercy Memorial Hospital, the second largest employer in the area, to have lunch with their team at the agency. The lunch was from 11:30 to 1:00 and included a 30-minute session where the people from Mercy Memorial were asked to identify areas that needed improvement. It included a PowerPoint presentation that talked about the agency’s culture and “how that made us different,” Bob says. “We never mentioned insurance. The whole focus was on identifying ways that we could help our client succeed,” T.J. emphasizes. “When we got to the portion of the program when the people from the hospital talked about what we needed to do better, it was a real eye-opener and presented us with some real opportunities,” Bob says. “Among the key areas where the hospital wanted more help from us were: recruiting and retaining personnel, reducing risk, and making packages for group life and disability available for them.” The symbiotic relationship between Bramlett and its clients is clearly shown by the efforts it has taken for the hospital. Bramlett people are actively involved in helping the hospital with a fund-raising effort that is expected to bring in a much-needed $20 million. “We were able to go into the community and explain the hospital’s needs,” Bob says. The agency is planning on having luncheons with different clients on a regular basis. Treating employees well Good relationships, of course, begin at home and Bramlett carries that through every day by treating everyone in the agency as an important part of the Bramlett family. One example is the recognition of Belinda Ford, vice president of customer service, who has been with the agency 32 years. “We sent her on a cruise on her 30th anniversary with the agency and to Cozumel on the 25th anniversary,” Bob says. “Our people are what make us different,” he concludes. “I’d put my team against any agency in the country,” he adds proudly. Giving back to the industry Bob adds that the Big “I” national and the Big “I” of Oklahoma have been important in helping the agency achieve its goals. “Dick Teubner, of Rich & Cartmill in Tulsa, is only one of many people I have met over the years who has given me advice that has helped me grow the agency. And I have tried to give back to those organizations by being actively involved in areas where I believe I can provide the most help.” Bob is a past president of the Big “I” of Oklahoma and serves as State National Director to the IIABA. He is also on the Government Affairs Committee and serves as chairman of the Trusted Choice Big “I” Junior Classic. “Last year’s tournament was held here in Ardmore and was a tremendous success. We had four past presidents of the Big ‘I’ and four members of the Executive Committee come to Ardmore for the event.” This year’s tournament was held in Lafayette, Indiana. Reaching $2.4 million in revenue when you’re based in a town of only 26,000 is quite an accomplishment and Bramlett has done it. We salute the agency for its success by recognizing it as our Marketing Agency of the Month and look forward to seeing it achieve its goal of $5 million in revenue by 2009. * | ||||||||||||||
